Topic: #Blocksize Survey - page 13. (Read 16152 times)

Sorry for being the odd one out in theymos' list, not having my stance on the issue clear . I will clarify it, but only after I explain at length why I reject the whole premise of the question.
This used to be a technical debate about block sizes. We were presented with two bad choices: Keep it at 1MB which is obviously too low, or increase to 8MB/20MB which is obviously too high (obvious to me anyway). As a community we've failed to reach a compromise, and I think that if more people pushed for a reasonable number like 3-4 MB in the short term (including also Gavin and Mike on one extreme, and Peter on the other), things would be different now.
Given that compromise failed, Gavin and Mike went ahead to push Bitcoin-XT, and now the real issue isn't about technology, it's about the philosophy of Bitcoin evolution. To me, Bitcoin-XT represents a somewhat reckless approach, which in the name of advancement shatters existing structures, fragments the community, and spins the ecosystem into chaos. Whereas Bitcoin Core represents a frigid approach, where no technology improvement will ever be made because consensus can't be reached, and where we can't do anything about the fact that we can't do anything, because of the delegitimization of attempts to change the status quo by forking and letting the best currency win (and make no mistakes, there will be many necessary technology improvements down the road; the block size limit pales in comparison).
Both choices are bad.
I had plans once to write a paper about the game-theoretic aspects of changing the Bitcoin protocol, the contingencies in case of a fork, and how the mere threat of a fork can create a Schelling point which would prevent it from happening. I regret never getting around to it, because it might have been illuminating in the current debate. (For that matter, the other paper I had plans for writing was about transaction fees and how they relate to things like a block size limit; I regret that too, but again the block size is no longer the real issue).
But anyway, I do strongly believe that the possibility of forking Bitcoin - even if at first it has no consensus - is vital to Bitcoin's health, growth and survival. It's the glue that holds everything together and makes sure the Bitcoin economy has a say in case something goes wrong with the development. Ideally a contentious fork would forever remain a theoretical possibility - but if it is possible it means it can happen, and that's what we're seeing right now. Rejecting a fork on the grounds that it's a fork is wrong.
Of course, there are grounds to reject Bitcoin-XT on the grounds that its timing and method are wrong. The objection to the technical change was too strong to just gloss over it. We're definitely not anywhere near the point where Pieter, Greg or Wladimir can be conceivably considered rogue and we should break away from them. Mike and Gavin have, quite arrogantly I would say, assumed that this is just like any other software change and that virtually everyone will just automatically follow them, where the reality is far from it. They didn't properly consider the consequences of making this move without enough support. (They might reply that they have been fighting for this for a long time and exhausted all other options, but I don't accept this - they made many attempts at persuasion, but not enough at compromise).
So here we are, having to choose between two bad alternatives. The mere act of choosing commits, in my opinion, the logical fallacy of privileging the hypothesis. There are millions of possible approaches, and "someone" out there restricted them to just 2. Most of the decision process (culling from millions to 2) was made for me and I'm left rubber-stamping one of the choices that remain. (See also http://lesswrong.com/lw/mi/stop_voting_for_nincompoops/).
But hey, even a noisy bit contains some information, and the question was asked, so...

Given the choice between short-term sticking with 1MB or going all the way to 8MB, I am in favor of going to 8MB.
Given the choice between sticking with Bitcoin Core or switching to Bitcoin-XT, I am in slight favor of sticking with Bitcoin Core, but that could change any time.

All that said, the parent post explaining theymos' policy makes no sense to me. As explained above, the possibility of forking is an integral part of Bitcoin. As long as Bitcoin-XT has non-negligible support as the true Bitcoin implementation, even with nothing resembling unanimous consensus, it is a part of what Bitcoin is, and of course is on topic on a Bitcoin subreddit.
Even if for some reason we take a purist approach that Bitcoin = Bitcoin Core, I'd imagine that most posts about Bitcoin-XT would compare it in some way to Bitcoin Core, and as such are on-topic (just like a post comparing Bitcoin and Litecoin would be on topic).
I'm considering upgrading the above to a post, but honestly, since it includes a discussion of Bitcoin-XT, I'm not even sure it passes the moderation rules...

I'm not sure you do know how it works, the economic majority dont defect, the incentives ensure the majority's interests are best served.
You call this a hostile hard fork and an Altcion because you have another agenda that requires you to use political manipulation and fear to choose a path that is not in there best interests.

You are losing credibility by trying to elevate your understanding of Bitcoin by bench marking of my membership date. what relevance is that? 

I've known "how Bitcoin works" since before you made your account here.  But thanks for the (partial) refresher.

What you left out is the key role of the economic majority, and more specifically, the risk incurred by those (brave) actors who are first to attempt defection from it.

the answer is to run Bitcoin XT with just the large blocks fork and without the additional items

...

Mike Hearn says:

Mike Hearn says:

Raising the block size is supported by, amongst others:

-The developers of the most popular wallets on iOS, Android and one of the most popular web wallets. Between them they have served millions of users.
-Several of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges.
-The two biggest payment processors, which between them have most of the market.
-Several major mining pools, including all the Chinese pools.
-Two of the five Bitcoin Core committers (Gavin and Jeff)
-User polling shows about 75–80% support from people in online forums.

Every day blocks are orphaned by competition for the longest chain, each orphan represent a failed fork, the reason miners stop mining the shortest chain is they mine coins that will be accepted by the users of the network. This is not political or risky, the chain that accommodates the most transactions and uses create a market for miners to sell the coins they mine and so will be the longest.

This is how Bitcoin works, and has always worked.

Bitcoin needs to be protected from any one minority group influencing it's function that's the promise decentralization provides.

What many here are overlooking is it's already centralized, and the centralized controllers are telling us that all nodes should run their version of the code, and they use terms like it's a hostile hard fork if you try to improve Bitcoin without our approval.  Those centralized controllers either don't trust the Bitcoin protocol or don't want to concede control.

XT is no threat to Bitcoin

More nodes running centrally controlled code is not decentralization, we want many implementations of code running the same protocol.

If we end up with 200 nodes run by competing interests we will have more decentralization that we have today.

Every day blocks are orphaned by competition for the longest chain, each orphan represent a failed fork, the reason miners stop mining the shortest chain is they mine coins that will be accepted by the users of the network. This is not political or risky, the chain that accommodates the most transactions and uses create a market for miners to sell the coins they mine and so will be the longest.

This is how Bitcoin works, and has always worked.

There has never been a contentious hard fork of Bitcoin, so in any case, XT's would be necessarily be "different."

And that's why you Gavinista's authoritarian junta is not going to happen.

In a contentious hard fork, somebody (the most hardcore Gavinista ever) has to stick their neck out and be the first to accept XTcoins, at the risk of them becoming worthless if their contentious fork fails.

OTOH, those staying safely with the previously demonstrated multi-billion dollar economic majority may seek to exploit the ideological (over)commitments of XTcoin's White Knight first actors, in the form of MPEX's XTcoin Short.  No wonder you don't want to sell your silver for my XTcoins!

Given enough leverage, Team Core will move XT's world onto the ash heap of history.   

Watch and learn, n00b...   

The reality is that Bitcoin blockchain can't handle all the world's transactions without getting completely centralized. These off-chain proposals are serving to satisfy both needs -- a need for scalability and a need for decentralization. If you read LN paper, you would have noticed that it actually argues in favor of bigger blocks -- otherwise it can't be reliable.

On the other hand, if we increase blocksize limit too much, we also erode its security and decentralization.

IMO, there must be a compromise. We can increase the limit without undermining decentralization, but the increases must be very conservative with regards to technological improvements, I'd suggest 15-20% a year. In the meantime, trustless off-cain solutions must be developed.

Sidechains, and Lightning Network, both those proposals are being worked on with full intent to move bitcoin transactions off the Main Chain. The net long term result is as block rewards diminish mining revenue that should come from transaction fees is moved out of the Bitcoin Block-chain and onto of-chain solutions, this changes the inherent incentive structure as designed by Satoshi and erodes the security dependent on incentives that secure Bitcoin from manipulation and attack.  

Agree completely. Any change must have overwhelming consensus.

But consensus can be built over time, and the way to do so is to have an extended and very public discussion of the issue. We still have at least 6 months before the problems become urgent. We should make the most of that time to get each dev to explain their position very clearly, including its consequences and meaning for the future of Bitcoin.

nice try, Blockstream-coin if it survives will be an alt, I suspect Gmax and co will eat some humble Pie and move over to working on the Original Bitcoin.

the whole idea of a fork being a divorce is ludicrous and shame on you for speeding such crap, almost every significant upgrade to bitcoin has resulted in a hard fork, this upgrade will be no different, it's a problem developers dont want to fix bugs for feer of fracturing the network now is the time to do it as you know it only gets harder as we go forward.  

So you're going to be the first to stick your neck out and start accepting XTcoins, in order to begin establishing its alleged economic majority?

Such a brave choice.  XT needs more White Knights like you, since smoothie chickened out.

OK, I'll happily pay you in XTcoins for whatever you want to sell.  Got any silver, gold, or prepper gear/camping supplies?

Care to elaborate? What unpoplar and potentially devastating ideas did they try to implement?